As much as we’d like to think otherwise, most of the decisions we make are on autopilot. In the brain’s drive for efficiency, most of our behavior becomes automatic. Someone smiles at us, we smile back. Someone yells at us in traffic, we are ready to do battle. Most of the stupid decisions we make are spontaneous reactions to threat, or perceived slights regarding respect or lack of appreciation. Even 5 minutes later, we can wonder at our own behavior. How did we get a parking space mixed up with our self respect, and regard for others? “What was I thinking?” This is one of the signs that you might be in the overload phase of “Don’t Worry, I got this!”.

When life shows up (children, careers, finances, mortgages, and just stuff breaking) our brains are working hard to sort out what is important. If we are not paying attention, we’ll just take it all on. The overwhelm, the stress, the self criticism when we can’t live up to our own “made up” expectations are the territory that can lead to acute and sometimes chronic depression, sadness, and a lack of joy in our lives. We loose the “win” in just being alive.

God forbid, that we admit that we can’t carry it all. Believe me, it is hard to be accepting of myself. The constant comparison between what I accomplish and what I “should” be able to do chips away at the joy of life. I become automatic in my relationships, and those close to me can tell.

What happens when we become our own “best friend”? What “self image” do we have to lay down to be more gentle with ourselves? What can happen when we embrace our humanity, admit vulnerabilities and our limitations? The laying down of “Don’t worry, I got this”, and picking up “I’m doing the best I can” can deliver us to compassion for ourselves and the loved ones in our lives.

So the next time you find yourself attempting to take it all on, please take a deep breath, maybe even count to ten, and say “let me get back to you about that”. s It may help to think of what your best friend might say to you and your never ending list. This may help you smile at yourself and relax, even just a little.

Today is the birthday of one of our beloved team members here at P2 Partnerships, Allison Dragony. Yesterday was the birthday of two of our beloved consultants and faculty, Maya Kollman and Jill Fein Baker. Today is a day of lower humidity and beautiful skies in hot Atlanta. Today I met with a couple who is having small successes in their shift into their relationship challenge. Today I have energy to move furniture and make decisions to make our space better.

The most important thing of all is the willingness and ability to take a moment to celebrate and appreciate what’s good in the world. It’s a frightening and sad reality that making the emotional and mental space to notice what’s right with the world takes effort.

I know that our essences want to celebrate and want to experience the joy of the good and right things in our lives. We typically maintain that 60 to 90% of our lives are pretty darn good. Unfortunately, our survival efforts keep us deeply focused on the percentage that’s not right, the things that look and are dangerous, the sadness, the helplessness we experience that can lead to hopelessness we desperately want to fight off.

I just completed teaching the Attuned Therapist advanced course to therapists in Imago. One clear and important direction that we are pursuing in all of our work is self compassion. Kristen Neff’s wonderful contributions are very helpful in this. Look her up!

We can’t help our first thought, but we can help our second thought. With compassionate attitudes toward ourselves and others, we can dramatically effect the mindset that we are using in every encounter.

If we remember that we are all doing the best we know how to do in the moment, and that we can make good repairs for the messy and the dangerous moments, we become safer human beings. In addition, if we are able to fully enjoy, appreciate, and celebrate the good, we become safer human beings primarily because our eyes send the gaze and not the glare.

Twenty-two years ago we came to Paris for the first time. We were barely into our 20s. We saw Rodin’s and Cezanne’s and Bonnard’s, we walked around Monet’s water lilies, and we enjoyed cheese at the end of dinner. Other than being accompanied by a set of parents—whose generosity made the trip possible—it could have been a postcard trip, the quintessential journey of discovery and amour in one of the world’s most iconic cities.

It wasn’t.

There were some delightful moments, of course, but traveling challenged us. With disrupted routines the small irritations loomed large and tensions built. Away from home, it was not as easy to sweep the dust under the rug that had been gathering at the feet of our six-year relationship. When we reflect on that trip, it’s not the masterpieces and architecture that come to mind, but rather the fight we had while walking along one of the avenues paralleling the Seine. The argument was concrete and simple: one of us wanted to walk fast, the other wanted slow. Neither of us can remember now who wanted what, but we both recall vividly that we were out of step and out of patience, and perfectly content to squander this rare and precious moment together.

We know now that the conflict in Paris ran much deeper. We each held onto the belief that if he or she would just act “the right way,” the problems would cease. We believed in being right over being together. The thought of marriage percolated, but we were waiting until the dust settled, that we settled, and it wasn’t happening. If we can’t walk down the streets of Paris without arguing, then maybe it’s time to stop.

Within a few months of that trip a trusted beloved shoved rather than nudged us into the Imago “Getting the Love You Want” workshop. Nervous and uncertain we got to work along with a dozen other couples. It wasn’t easy. We learned skills we desperately needed, and we began to see how our personalities and our histories were impacting how we showed up in our relationship. That weekend we glimpsed a different way of being together, a way that would invite and even compel us to see and experience our selves and the other in a different light. A few months later, optimistic and inspired, we got engaged.

In the decades since that trip to Paris, we’ve done a lot of living. We bought our first home, we welcomed three sons into our world, and we nurtured important friendships. We figured out that we liked each other in addition to loving each other, and we learned that play and fun is a requirement not an option. There’s been lots of laughter. But not all that living has been joyful. Together we buried two beloved parents, both of whom died suddenly and too young. Our oldest son Jack fought to survive a traumatic birth that shocked us into the fragile identity of parenthood. We struggled through early and later career setbacks. And a few times we threw our marriage and ourselves into dark places of our own creation that took time to heal and mend. In all of this living we discovered that our goal is not a conflict or crisis-free marriage. Our daily practice is about winding our way into a more conscious relationship, so that when we get ourselves into trouble we can trust that the conflict is a signal of something more trying to show up.

We are back in France this week to celebrate twenty years of marriage and twenty-eight years together, just the two of us this time. We’re laughing and bumbling along with almost zero French between us in a city that feels tender and kind in the wake of its last year. Traveling can still be a challenge. We hopped off our train to Paris too early and almost stranded ourselves in a remote town. This time, though, we giggled, jumping back on the train with too many bags looking silly and very American.

Yesterday we walked all over Paris and finished the day back at the Seine, crossing the same bridge we’d argued on so many years ago. The Fitbit announced we’d walked over twenty-thousand steps together.

Do you see patterns? Do you see your patterns? Do you see how helpful they were once upon a time? Do you see the patterns that are no longer helpful? Do you see the patterns that have become your enemy??

All of us develop habits and patterns to cope with our complex world. Many of these were established before we were eight years old. We know this because that’s when language fully comes online. Most of these patterns begin when we have no sense of language and, consequently, do not have ways to articulate what our coping mechanisms are.

New patterns can and will emerge. All of this comes from our perceived sense of what it will take to be safe in the world. We struggle with what will help us belong. We work to find what will give us security. We stress to discover what will keep us safe from harm. We make efforts to be attractive and lovable so that we will be wanted.

What drives patterns are our mindsets. Mindset is the collection of our attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. This collection drives how we see the world and think of ourselves in the world.

Our work with forgiveness, our interest in what challenges people and mobilizes people toward joy and capability, returns over and over to the realization that the most significant thing we do is change our mindset. Our work in Imago is dedicated to mindset interventions. We just haven’t thought of it quite in that way.

Our ability to change our mindset is a unique quality of being human. Unfortunately, until we realize that we HAVE them we can’t decide if that mindset continues to work for us.

When we have repetitive difficulties it behooves us to consider looking in the mirror. We often ask people to assess the story they tell themselves about the given situation. The story is a window into the complex mindset that may now be out of date.

A change of mindset requires a several step process.

First, it helps to articulate the mindset that exists.

Second, a new mindset must be introduced.

Third, ask yourself, “If I believed this new mindset, what would I do differently? How would I treat myself and you in a different way? What would that behavior look like?”

Fourth, begin to experiment with doing the new behavior as soon as possible. Tell somebody what you have done. Replay the story experience you had, the intervention with yourself, and use it to let another person in on something precious about you. Chances are it will increase intimacy and it will add something to their lives as well.